Remy's homer in ninth gives Red Sox East title over Yanks

 Jerry Remy hit his 7th and final MLB home run on Aug. 20, 1978. Here, to honor his memory, he gets an 8th. 

Remy delivers his game-winner against Gossage.

Nearly 11 years to the day that he stormed the field at Fenway Park with other Red Sox fans to celebrate an Impossible Dream, Jerry Remy was caught up in another melee on Boston's hallowed baseball grounds yesterday afternoon.

This time he was the hero.

Remy, who as a 14-year-old kid in Somerset, Mass. lived and died with Carl Yastrzemski and the rest of the '67 American League Champions, delivered a ninth-inning, inside-the-park home run to give the 1978 edition of his hometown team a 6-5 victory over New York in Monday's winner-take-all AL East playoff at Fenway. The winning blow -- Remy's second clutch hit in as many innings off Yankees relief ace Rich Gossage -- was a line drive that bounced past Lou Pinella and into the right-field corner as Rick Burleson (one-out walk) and Remy sprinted around the bases.

First to greet Remy in a triumphant postgame embrace was his teammate and childhood hero Yastrzemski, whose own second-inning homer off New York starter Ron Guidry had given Boston an early lead in what Yaz called "the biggest ballgame of my life." Now he, Remy, and the rest of the 100-win Red Sox are in Kansas City, where they begin the American League Championship Series against the Royals tonight at 8:30.

"I knew I hit it well, but I wasn't sure if Pinella would be able to get to it," a champagne-drenched Remy said in the winning clubhouse. "When I saw it go by him, I just ran as fast as I could and looked for the sign from [third base coach] Eddie Yost."

Remy was all smiles postgame.

Yost's sign was GO-GO-GO, and that's what Boston's fastest baserunner did -- sliding in just under Thurman Munson's tag at the plate. It was only Remy's third home run of the season, and the eighth of his career, but it has already taken on Ruthian status in New England.

"The littlest guy out there was the biggest one in the end," said Red Sox manager Don Zimmer, visibly exhausted after the contest. "Remy has been our sparkplug all season, and today was no different."

Early on, it was the usual suspects who provided the clutch hits for Boston. Guidry entered the game with a 24-3 record, but Yaz jumped on a fastball from the lefthander and lined a shot just inside the right-field foul pole for his 17th homer leading off the second. That gave Boston a 1-0 lead, which it extended to 2-0 on a run-scoring single in the sixth by Jim Rice -- his 139th RBI of an MVP-caliber campaign. Guidry lasted just six and one-third innings; Gossage went the rest of the way for New York.

Lynn greets Yastrzemski after his HR in second.

Boston starter Mike Torrez, meanwhile, allowed just two hits and no runs through six frames, baffling the team he had helped to a World Series title last October before signing with Boston as a free agent. In the seventh, however, the big righthander came undone, allowing singles to Chris Chambliss and Roy White and then a two-out, three-run homer by light-hitting shortstop Bucky Dent.that passed just over the left-field wall.

Yastrzemski, tracking the hit all the way, was visibly shaken by this outcome. His legs buckled as he saw the ball disappear into the screen above the wall, while Dent rounded the bases in a suddenly-silent Fenway. The only cheers seemed to come from the field box to the left of the third-base visitor's dugout, where Yankees boss George Steinbrenner and other club officials were seated.  

Dent's blow made it 3-2 New York. The lead eventually grew to 5-2 on a Munson double (also in the seventh) and a Reggie Jackson homer (starting off the eighth). Both came against Bob Stanley, who had relieved Torrez. The Steamer's brilliant pitching had bailed out Boston so often this season, but yesterday he just didn't have it. 

Down but not out, the Red Sox rallied. They scored two runs in their half of the eight, when Remy's leadoff double was followed by RBI singles from Yastrzemski and Fred Lynn off Gossage. That set the stage for the ninth, when Burleson walked with one out -- and then Remy ended it.

The heartstopping finish seemed to mirror the long summer that preceded it. The Red Sox had exploded to a big lead in the East by July, squandered it in August and early September, and then got hot again to catch the Yankees on the final Sunday of the regular season. Yesterday's one-game playoff, the second in American League history, matched teams with identical 99-63 records that most consider the two best clubs in the majors. 

Now Boston will have a chance to prove it against the AL West champion Royals in a best-of-five playoff. The first two games will be played in Kansas City; the third (and fourth and fifth if necessary) in Boston. The World Series awaits the winners.

Fenway awaits Game 3.

"We had great teams in '67 and '75, but I think this is the best I've ever played on," said Yastrzemski, a 17-year veteran. "After what we went through just to win our division, I think we're battle-tested and ready for anything."

That includes their newest home run hero. 

"Back when I was a kid throwing tennis balls against the back of the house, I pictured myself getting a home run to win the big game," said Remy, a smile still plastered to his face an hour after he did just that. "I can't believe that dream came true."

Jerry Remy (1952-2021) Steven Semme, AP

  

             

As 1967 team reunites, time is perfect for Red Sox to do right by Tony Conigliaro

It was 50 years ago this Friday. Red Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro lay crumpled at home plate, the victim of an errant pitch that struck him squarely on the face. As a hushed Fenway Park crowd watched on, teammates lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him off the field.

The hometown hero was just 22, blessed with a sweet right-handed stroke that had already made him the youngest American Leaguer ever to hit 100 home runs. Along with fellow All-Stars Carl Yastrzemski and Jim Lonborg, he was at the center of a Boston baseball revival that had risen a team of perennial losers from a decade in the doldrums to the thick of the 1967 pennant race. Tony C was as big a hero as it got in these parts.

And this week, as Yastrzemski, Lonborg, and other members of the "Impossible Dream" team return to Fenway and celebrate the 50th anniversary of their magical summer, the Red Sox organization should use the occasion to pay proper homage to their fallen teammate:

Retire Conigliaro's number 25.

Spare the talk about how such honors should only go to the best of the best in team history. Those who saw him play -- players and fans alike -- are in agreement that were he not nearly fatally beaned that August night, Tony C. would have hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 homers playing half his games at Fenway Park.

Conigliaro led the AL with 32 homers at age 20.

It was fate that denied him both that chance and the opportunity to play in the '67 World Series due to a cracked left cheekbone, dislocated jaw. and a damaged retina in his left eye. Doctors said he'd never play again. Yet Conigliaro had the guts to come back after 20 months and produce two more standout seasons with essentially no peripheral vision and a terrible blind spot in his bad eye.

Eventually the situation deteriorated to the point where he had to quit at age 26. A final comeback in 1975 produced many tears but too few hits, and a massive heart attack in 1982 left Conigliaro largely incapacitated and non-verbal. After eight excruciating years for he and his family, during which he never lived independently, he died at age 45 in 1990.

He didn't hit his 500 homers or make the Hall of Fame, but Tony C.'s legacy of courage and youthful glory is more than worthy of the highest honor the Red Sox can give.

"Here is a guy who literally gave his life for his hometown team," says Richard Johnson, curator of The Sports Museum and a leading authority on all things Boston baseball. "What could be more deserving of our respect than that?"

(Associated Press)

This topic has come up for discussion before. Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald has long beat the drum for Conigliaro, with occasional help from the Farrelly brothers, but while the team has widened its number-retirement ranks in recent years, Tony C. has not made the cut.

So why not now? This is likely the last time so many of Conigliaro's former Red Sox teammates will ever all be together again -- Yastrzemski, Lonborg, Mike Andrews, Reggie Smith, and the rest. Rico Petrocelli, the first guy to reach Tony C. when he went down like a shot at home plate, will be here too.

Yaz and other Tony C. teammates are here this week.

Tuesday and Wednesday's games fall during the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, and Thursday is an off-day. So why not make Friday the night?

Fifty years to the day of what is likely the most tragic day in franchise history, the Red Sox could invite Mike Lowell (another great ballplayer to wear 25) to take off his jersey and hand it to Tony C's brother -- and onetime Red Sox outfield mate -- Billy Conigliaro. Tony's nieces and nephews could unveil his number in right field and Billy could throw out a ceremonial first pitch to his remaining brother, Richie.

Then Billy would give way to the current Boston team and its opponents for the night: the New York Yankees.

A pennant race under the biggest spotlight -- two things Tony C. relished but never got to enjoy enough. It may be short timing, but the Red Sox could still make it happen.

FOR DISCUSSION: Should the Red Sox retire Conigliaro's number -- and why?

Why David Ortiz has more in common with Sandy Koufax than Ted Williams

What's this .097 hitter have in common with Ortiz?

He's not a pitcher, he's not a Dodger, but the final months of David Ortiz's career are more closely mirroring those of Sandy Koufax than Ted Williams.

Long before Ortiz hit his 522nd lifetime home run on July 1 to pass the total hit by Williams, people were linking the two Red Sox icons. No less an authority than Carl Yastrzemski has called them the two greatest players in franchise history, and all but die-hard Yaz fans would agree.

When it comes to swan songs, however, the comparisons don't measure up. Ted played his final year for a moribund Red Sox team that finished 7th in the American League, and his 29 homers and .316 average meant nothing beyond padding his Hall of Fame statistics. He gave fans some final thrills at age 42 -- including, famously, a bullpen blast in his last at-bat -- but the Fenway stands that day and many others were largely empty.

Pressure? For Williams, in 1960, there was none.

Less than 11,000 saw Ted's last HR live.

Ortiz is playing under far different circumstances. The Red Sox near the All-Star break in the thick of the AL East and Wild Card races, meaning each Big Papi hit -- even, in one memorable case, a game-saving triple -- has far more importance. On a team filled with budding superstars, it is still Ortiz opposing pitchers fear most in crunch time. Fenway is regularly jammed to capacity with demanding Boston fans.

Whereas Williams was truly a lion in winter during his final season, emerging from hibernation to accumulate just 310 at-bats, Ortiz is playing nearly every day and leads the AL in OPS. True, he has yet to take the field on defense, but what he's doing at the plate is still remarkable for a 40-year-old. One could make a strong argument that Big Papi has been the league MVP over the first half-sesaon, and he is slated to start at DH for the AL in next week's All-Star Game.

It's enough to make a guy change his mind about retirement, but Ortiz insists that won't be the case. He is too proud and too smart to chance playing one year too long and leaving fans with a less-then-flattering image of a .220, 12-homer campaign. Plus, in addition to the normal aches that can hamper a ballplayer of his age and size, he has severe pain in his feet  that clubhouse onlookers confirm he hides behind his gregarious persona.

Here's where Koufax comes in.

Fifty years ago, the Dodgers hurler dubbed "The Left Hand of God" faced his own physical challenges. Although the he was just 30 in 1966, Koufax's arthritic left elbow caused him constant pain on and off the mound. His arm remained bent at a 22.5-degree angle between starts, and he had suits specially tailored to hide the deformity, Doctors warned him that he could permanently damage his arm by continuing to hurl 300 innings a year.

Koufax on ice -- a common occurrence in '66. 

But, like this year's Red Sox, the Los Angeles Dodgers of '66 were a contending team -- in fact, the defending World Series champs -- in a tight pennant race. There were other strong players on the club, and two future Hall of Fame pitchers in Don Drysdale and rookie Don Sutton behind him in the rotation, but Sandy was clearly the star. As with Ortiz, nobody performed better when the pressure was greatest.

This stayed true down the stretch in '66. The pain never lessened, but Koufax kept winning -- going 8-2 with an 1.78 ERA and 8 complete games in his final 11 starts. On the last day of the season, with the National League championship on the line, he beat Phillies ace Jim Bunning with a 10-strikeout performance on two days rest.

In addition to helping the Dodgers to the World Series, where they lost to Baltimore, Koufax led the league in wins (at 27-9), ERA (1.73), strikeouts (317), Bar Mitzvah invitations, and marriage proposals. He won his third Cy Young Award in four years, and only a career season from Roberto Clemente denied Sandy NL MVP honors as well.

Then, shocking the sports world, Koufax walked away. In a hastily called press conference, he stated that "I've got a lot of years to live after baseball and I would like to live them with the complete use of my body."

There will be no such surprise announcement from Ortiz. Everybody knows he is retiring. But, like Koufax, and unlike Williams, Big Papi is doing so on a team that could very well be playing important games in September -- and maybe October.

In the end, that's far more important than any home run.

Will Ortiz's last season also end with bunting?

The 1975 Red Sox helped save baseball -- and my childhood

Forty years ago tonight the Red Sox and Reds played what is routinely cited as one of the greatest games in sports history. Filled with high drama and compelling characters, Game 6 of the 1975 World Series set TV viewership records and jump-started baseball's popularity -- which had waned with the rise of the NFL and Monday Night Football.

Some say Game 6 saved the National Pastime. It definitely helped save me.

I was in the stands at Fenway that cold October evening, and wish I remembered it better. It was well past an 8-year-old's bedtime, and most of my recollections of the evening revolve around the pregame -- when I joined the multitudes shouting "Looie! Looie!" into cardboard megaphones as we watched ace Luis Tiant warm up in the Boston bullpen -- and the climax -- lots of screaming, hugging, and organ playing after Carlton Fisk's shot to left field banged off the foul pole for a game-winning homer.

The 7-6 Red Sox win only temporarily staved off a Cincinnati celebration the next night in Game 7 , but the feats of Pudge, El Tiante, and their teammates during that season and beyond had a lasting impact on me -- providing a way to survive and then escape from the darkest force of my childhood.

Before '75, the Red Sox were not on my radar screen. My big brother Adam played in the Newton Central Little League, and I went to his games, but my father was an MIT-educated engineer who liked to joke that he "wasn't created with a sports gene." Dad could build or fix anything but looked like Felix Unger when throwing a ball.  

Baseball was never on the radio or the TV, and I connected with my father by building plastic model cars in his basement workshop. I'm not sure I even knew who Carlton Fisk was then, but I could tell any two Ford Thunderbirds apart by studying the taillights of my AMI replicas. At the time that was good enough.

Pre-Sox stats: A full-length taillight on the '66.

Then, on Friday the 13th of January, 1975, my parents sat me and Adam down on his bed to tell us they were splitting up after 13 years of marriage. My mother claims I said something mature like "Well, if you don't get along well together, at least this way you can stay friends," but at age 7 I certainly couldn't grasp the seriousness of what was going on. 

Dad moved the next day from our house in leafy Newton to an apartment abutting Routh 95 in Burlington, where the three of us hanged out every weekend watching late-night TV and eating burgers and creamed corn. Adam and I slept head-to-toe on a living room couch, like Richie's big brother Chuck and his college roommates on "Happy Days." 

For Adam, then nearly 11, it must have been scary and sad to see our father starting his life over. For me it felt like an adventure.

Beacon Village: Fun far from Fenway.

We didn't listen or watch baseball at "dad's house," but by the time the Red Sox clinched the American League East that September the games started appearing on the big Zenith in our den. Mom had a boyfriend, and he had plenty of sports genes.

Jack was big and strong, a jock-turned-lawyer and a rabid Sox fan. He had the games on no matter what he was doing; he even had a huge set of headphones with a built-in radio that he wore while mowing the lawn. I still made Rydell models in the shop, but Jack never went down there. To connect with the new man in the house, I had to watch the games too.

So I did -- and got hooked.

While my own baseball skills were and remained mediocre at best, I found I had a natural affinity for understanding the game and its history. Jack, who had played in high school and beyond, explained some of the finer points, and I began listening to the Sox on my clock radio as I fell asleep and then poring through boxscores in the next morning's Globe. Tiant, Fisk, Rice, Lynn, Yastrzemski -- these heroes provided the language I figured would win Jack over. 

"Hey, Looie got the win last night," I'd say to Jack as we passed heading to and from the bathroom, and I'd feel, briefly, like his equal.

When Luis was winning, life was easier.

Dad briefly took over as the baseball man in the family that October, when a friend of a friend hooked him up with tickets to all four home games in the Red Sox-Reds World Series. These were, I believe, my first visits to Fenway Park, but it was not the start of a trend; once the series and season were over we rarely went back.

A clear dichotomy formed in the years that followed. Weekends at dad's house from spring through early fall were fun-filled with mini-bikes and James Bond movies and burgers, while the weekdays back in Newton were for baseball. Dad married his girlfriend Judy, who was and is a great stepmom but also lacks a sports gene. Mom married Jack, assuring that the Red Sox would always be on at her house.

Hoping for the best, fearing the worst.

As I got older and began to understand a little how the real world worked, I learned one had to be careful when watching and listening to games with Jack. 

If the Red Sox were winning, he smiled and laughed and was your buddy; if they were losing the smile disappeared and he filled up his big glass from the liquor cabinet more often. He never took me and Adam to games or even played catch with us -- those honors were reserved for his own son -- so this hit-or-miss bonding was the best I was going to get.

Sprawled out on the shag carpet in front of the TV, with Jack in the dark leather recliner behind me, I prayed for wins. After Bucky Dent in '78 and the dismantling of the club that soon followed, the drunk, angry moods became more common. It wasn't just the slumping Sox, I learned later; Jack's once flourishing law career was also on a downward trend. 

Time for another drink.

It was best just to stay away, and I found I could momentarily forget about him and the scare he put into me by listening to Ken Coleman call the Sox games on WHDH -- "850 on your AM dial." If there was no game on, I could sing along to Jim Croche or Don MacLean albums with my mom. She made sure I felt loved, and when Jack was in one of his dark moods I guess I did the same for her.

By the early '80s, when Yastrzemski was winding down, I had given up any chance of bonding with the big guy across the hall. I still loved baseball, and began taking the Green Line from Boston College to Kenmore Square with friends in a rite of passage that allowed me to escape the tension at home by making a new home at Fenway. Occasionally dad got there with me -- one game he took me and 10 buddies to right after my Bar Mitzvah remains a great memory -- but the Red Sox were mostly "my" thing. That was fine.

Yaz retired in October 1983, but the last links to the '75 team, Dwight Evans and Jim Rice, were still going strong when I left for college a couple years later. The next summer I returned just as the Red Sox and young pitching phenom Roger Clemens were heating up. 

It was the type of club that even Jack and I might have enjoyed together, but by this point Mom had finally endured enough. He was on the way out, and when he meekly offered me great tickets to a few games that August -- not to go with him, just free seats -- I politely refused. I'd rather grab a standing-room spot balanced atop the guardrails behind the last row of Section 25 with my friends than take his weak-ass handouts.

By '86, I'd rather hang here than with him.

I have no idea where Jack is now; the last I heard about him, he had done some time in jail and been disbarred for stealing money from clients. I occasionally Google him but nothing comes up other than a few short stories and court documents describing his incarceration. I know people who know one of his other ex-wives, and a few calls would likely unearth his whereabouts. But I don't make them.

Mom found a guy worthy of her love -- and ours -- and they had a great decade together before he died of cancer. She and dad did indeed stay friendly and still get together with Adam and my families often. Ballgames are usually on in the background; Dad and Judy still have not developed sports genes, but they'll go to their grandkids' games.

Jack is about 80 now; I imagine the next time I read his name -- if I ever do -- will be in an obituary. Forty years after he entered my life, and nearly 30 years after he left it, the fear and anger are long gone. What's left are the memories of a great team, and a love for the game that I developed in 1975 out of desperation -- but has remained far beyond its original intent.

Maybe Jack never took me to Fenway, but now I can go whenever I want. I tend to look at it not as revenge, but it feels sweet just the same. 

Like a fly ball heading deep to left, staying fair, and making us believe anything is possible. 

  


  
    

David Ortiz Countdown brings back memories of Yaz Watch -- and the Charlie's Angels Gaffe

Two who know the thrill of the chase.

My phone buzzed Wednesday night in the Staples parking lot with a text from my friend Scott reading only "498." The two photos below were attached, and I momentarily had a rush of excitement and jealousy that he was at Fenway Park while I waited in school supply lines. 

It was only the second inning. Perhaps, I texted back to Scott, David Ortiz could get two more homers in the game and reach 500 before the Red Sox went on a 9-game road trip the next day. He didn't, of course, and by game's end my thoughts returned as they often have in recent weeks to 1979 -- when Carl Yastrzemski was in pursuit of his 3000th hit. 

I was 12 that summer, and like most Boston-born kids had been cheering for Yaz all my life. I twirled my bat and tugged at my pants in Little League games, and made self-tossed leaping catches against the backyard wall of our house in imitation of Captain Carl's Green Monster heroics.

Like Ortiz, Yastrzemski had been in danger of missing his best chance to get his big hit at home back in '79.

Ancient Mariner (Topps)

He had a great first half-season, and slugged his 400th home run in July, but the march to hit No. 3000 was excruciatingly slow. Like this year's team, the Sox were essentially out of the pennant race that September, leaving fans not much else to cheer for but the "Ancient Mariner's" quest. 

Yaz hit .225 in August, the month he turned 40, and more often than not the "Yaz Watch" numbers that the Boston Globe noted on the front of its Sports page stayed unchanged from one day to the next.  He needed just 5 hits when the Red Sox started a six-game homestand on Sept. 7, and after getting 3 of them the first night against the Orioles his bat went stone silent.

Struggling in the stretch. (Getty Images)

The next three games against the Orioles he went 1-for-12, and when the hated Yankees came in for three more Yastrzemski was still one hit shy. He went 0-for-3 with a walk in the first contest, which I watched on the massive free-standing Zenith in our family's den -- flipping back-and-forth between Yaz's at-bats on Channel 38 and a Tuesday night ABC lineup of "Happy Days," "Angie," "Three's Company." and "Taxi" on Channel 5. 

Remember, this was before smartphones with their tweets and MLB.com Gameday updates made it easy to view a game in your hand while watching something else on TV. I guess I could have brought in a portable TV or radio and had both going at once, but hey, I was just 12. 

Wednesday's game pitted Yastrzemski against sore-armed New York pitcher Catfish Hunter. I tried my dual-channel tactics again, this time choosing NBC's "Eight is Enough" against the game. I caught Yaz walk in the first, fly deep in the third, and then ground out to end a 3-run Boston fourth.

Tough competition.

This knocked out Hunter, so Yastrzemski was facing struggling rookie Jim Beattie when he came up again in the sixth. By now my partner viewing was a "Charlie's Angels" movie on ABC (again, I was 12) but I still managed to see Beattie get Yaz to ground out -- leaving the captain with possibly one more late-game chance. I sighed and flipped back to Bosley's beauties.

Then, perhaps lost in my pre-teen fantasies, my timing fell off. While watching the ladies get to the bottom of their latest mystery, I saw the letters start scrolling across the bottom of the screen: "CARL YAS..." I immediately leaped up and flipped the dial, but I was too late -- there was my hero letting out a sigh of relief on first base after a seeing-eye single under Willie Randolph's glove. No. 3000 was in the books.

Finally.

I saw the replay, but was pissed at myself for weeks.

Fast forward to today. With Ortiz still 2 homers shy of 500, I am determined not to miss the big moment -- which will almost certainly come sometime during Boston's current nine-game trip. I'll have my phone and MLB.com with me at all times, and will run to a bigger screen if one is nearby. I can even watch the entire game all over again if I want (we didn't have a VCR back in '79 either).  

Still, it won't be quite the same without The Fonz and Jaclyn Smith.

Two more to go. (Boston Herald)

My Vineyard visits with Bill Lee, Yaz, Tony C., and days gone by

One of my Vineyard visitors.

I had never heard of Nelson Chittum, who went 3-0 with a sterling 1.19 ERA for the 1959 Red Sox. Then I met him yesterday, along with Carl Yastrzemski and Bill Lee.

Each summer I pack up my lucky 2004 SUV with the Red Sox/Jimmy Fund license plates and drive/ferry my family to Martha's Vineyard for a last gasp of summer before Labor Day. Michelle  loves reading and letting her mind unwind from the daily challenge of helping her patients recover from strokes and brain injuries; Jason and Rachel, now 14 and 11, enjoy the final unstructured days before school.  

Me? I love the trip back in time.

The beaches and bike trains and Ben and Bills ice cream are all great, but my favorite moment of each year's journey may be the first few minutes Jason and I spend rifling through the baseball cards at the Chillmark Flea Market. They are split up into beat-up boxes marked "1950-60s" "1970s-80s" and "Red Sox." and we fly through them all -- putting aside those "possibles" we will consider for purchase. 

Little stickers in the top right corner of each card's protective plastic sleeve tell us what it will set us back, and Jason knows I'm seldom going to spend more than $5 for any given card. It's not Honus Wagner I'm after here, but a few moments of my childhood -- and Jason's. 

Before my eyes, my son has quickly become a full-fledged teenager. He grew about 8 inches in the last 8 months, and his voice dropped from tenor to bass. His body is filling out, taking him from the "before" photo in the old Charles Atlas ad much closer to the "after." He recovered from major leg and hip surgery in February faster than anyone expected, and spoke in front of 1,500 students and family members as his middle-school salutatorian in June.

Jason, before time took over.

In two weeks he will be a freshman at Newton North High, my alma mater, and plans to join the wrestling team and the theater program. Other than the three or four games we go to together at Fenway each year, baseball is very far from his mind. I've tried rekindling his interest, but he'd rather talk about movies, music, or even politics than the Red Sox pitching rotation. I'm slowly accepting it.

For those couple minutes at the flea market, however, both of us are 8 year-olds enthusiastically mining for gold. Ken Goldberg, who owns the cards along with a treasure-trove of road signs, books, and other items, stands back and watches. I am sure he has seen this countless times before -- fathers, sons, and the occasional mom and daughter thumbing back through the decades.

I collected baseball cards feverishly through my grade-school days, picking up most of them at Garbs drugstore by the Boston College trolley stop. Friends -- Greg Rutan and Kim Myers most spring to mind -- would accompany me on these trips, and we'd look over our loot while devouring ice cream sundaes next door at Brigham's. We'd always hope for Red Sox, of course, and barring that a star like Munson or Palmer or Foster. 

Ken helps bring me back.

It was the same with me and Jason when he was a little kid. We'd haunt the few remaining baseball card stores left in the Metro West area, and split our time buying new packs and looking through oldies. He devoured baseball history books and covered his walls with posters of Big Papi, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg, and (of course) Jason Varitek.

Then, one by one, the stores starting closing, reflecting a generation of kids that was moving increasingly online or onto "faster" sports like basketball and football. My son's interest waned along with the public's; he was a mediocre ballplayer, like his old man, and probably stayed in Little League one year longer than he wanted to for my sake.

Now Jason is a self-professed nerd who spends his time writing and playing intricate online computer games with friends all over the world. The posters and books in his room are changing along with his interests. My nephew is the baseball star; Jason is the star of Katan. 

Until we get in front of Ken's table.

"Look -- a '75 Yaz!" Jason yells, at the same moment I pull out my 1960 Nelson Chittum (I'm a sucker for any card with that old smiling Red Sock logo). A confident-looking 1978 Bill Lee -- that summer, I remind Jason, would not turn out well for him or the team -- comes out next. 

He spots a '65 Tony Conigliaro, where the 20-year-old stares out at the camera with a steely resolve. The card is bent and faded, giving it no real value, but Jason knows better: this is Tony C. in all his young, handsome glory, before the Gods of Fate beat him down.

Forever young.

    

Hanley Ramirez homering at record pace for Red Sox -- will weak pitching make it moot?

That ball is gone -- and so is the helmet. (AP)

Jimmie Foxx never did it. Neither did Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Jim Rice, or Mo Vaughn.

When Hanley Ramirez smoked a R.A. Dickey pitch into the left-field Monster seats at Fenway Park last night, it marked his 10th home run of April. Ramirez is tied atop the majors in homers with Nelson Cruz of Seattle, and just one player in Red Sox history has ever hit that many in the season's first month: David Ortiz in 2006.

That was the year Ortiz set a team record with 54 homers, but his prodigious slugging was not enough to save a pitching-thin Boston team from a third-place finish. Ramirez may meet a fate similar to his Dominican countryman this summer.

Although Rick Porcello pitched seven two-hit innings against the heavy-hitting Blue Jays last night in a 4-1 win, Red Sox starters have the worst ERA of any rotation in the major leagues.  

Slugger's Hug: Ortiz greets Ramirez. (USA Today)

Still, while pitching remains a major concern for Boston, Ramirez has quickly become a fan favorite with his prodigious slugging.

In addition to his 10 homers through 20 games, he is also tied with Cruz atop the AL with 22 RBI, while his .659 slugging percentage and .999 OPS place him among the Top 5. To put his hot start in perspective, Ramirez hit just 13 homers all of last season, and he is already nearly one-third of the way to his career high of 33 (set in 2008).

Making his performance all the more exciting is how he's doing it. Ramirez has a robust swing that often causes his helmet to fly off, and he has run out several home runs this year -- including last night's shot -- with nothing atop his colorful cornrows but a skull cap.

He did wrap a homer around the Pesky Pole on Tuesday night, but most of Hanley's howitzers have been no-doubters that fly off his bat even faster than they are delivered by the pitcher. Ramirez's Wednesday shot was estimated to have traveled 106 mph from the plate to the Monster seats, and some are predicting he could hit 50 for Boston hitting in a stacked lineup with Ortiz and fellow newcomer Pablo Sandoval.

Will an offense be enough? (Boston Globe)

The big question is whether all of these hitters will be enough to offset an ace-less Boston rotation that has had trouble getting through the middle of games. Porcello is the only Red Sox starter averaging six or more innings per game, and the team predicted by many to be a World Series contender is a so-so 12-10.

Red Sox fans hope that Rodriguez not only keeps knocking them out, but that come August and September his home runs will still have meaning as Boston seeks a return to the playoffs.

Forget David Ortiz, the guy Hanley Ramirez needs to get on speed dial is Jim Rice

They'll be tougher off the Wall. (USA Today)

Some good-natured ribbing took place on Sports Radio after Hanley Ramirez's press conference today, when the new Red Sox left fielder admitted that he has yet to speak this week with new teammate David Ortiz -- his "big brother" in baseball since Ramirez first signed with Boston back in the early '90s. 

Hopefully the two will connect soon, but if Ramirez really knows what is good for him, he'll meet up with another Red Sox slugger early and often in the months to come:

Jim Rice.

Forty years ago, rookie Rice came to Boston and earned himself a spot in the 1975 starting lineup with his prodigious bat. Rice was such a great hitter that the Red Sox moved six-time Gold Glove-winning left fielder Carl Yastrzemski to first base and planted Rice in front of the Green Monster. 

The '75 Sox outfield (L-R): Rice, Lynn, Evans

The rookie certainly didn't remind anybody of Yaz in those early days, but Rice worked as hard at his fielding as he did his hitting. Coach Johnny Pesky hit him hundreds and hundreds of fly balls, and the result was that Jim Ed became a very competent outfielder -- especially at Fenway.

In 1983, while he was winning the American League home run (39) and RBI (126) titles, Rice was also tied for second in the majors with 21 outfield assists -- many of them coming on balls hit off the Wall that he turned into outs at second base. 

Rice has his eyes on this one. (Getty Images)

Sox manager Ralph Houk said of Rice's fielding, "I don't think people realize just how good he is; he gets to most balls, and especially those hit to his right. I don't know of anybody who is better than he is playing the wall." No less an authority than Peter Gammons said Rice deserved a Gold Glove that year.

From behind the desk at NESN, Rice still looks like he could snap a bat in half with a check-swing. Chances are he could also show Ramirez some of the tricky bounces one encounters in left field at Fenway, both in the real digs at Yawkey Way and down at Fenway South in spring training. Rice didn't have the luxury of a practice Monster in Florida when he was playing; hopefully Ramirez will take advantage of it.

Rice still looks good. (NBC Sports)

Another area where Ramirez could take a lesson from Rice is toughness. During his three peak offensive years of 1977-79, the future Hall of Famer played in 481 of Boston's 484 games. It took real trips to the disabled list to knock Jim Ed from the lineup; last year Ramirez was sidelined in 23 of LA's first 103 games by finger, thumb, hand, shoulder, and calf injuries without ever going on the DL.

Ramirez may never be a Hall of Famer, but if he wants to live up to his press conference promise to play hard and well for Boston, he can take a lesson in both areas from the Cooperstown inductee who is around Fenway every day.

Or he could always try what the last Ramirez to play left field at Fenway did -- steal Wally's glove!

Why Opening Day reminds me I'm aging like Fenway dirt

This shirt is eight years older than Xander.

Another Opening Day at Fenway Park is nearly upon us, which also means it's my birthday week (actually, it's my birthday day). In many ways this is a nice congruity, since the beginning of a new baseball season also signifies the start of spring and (hopefully) better New England weather -- but it also calls attention to just how old I'm getting.

How does my first Fenway sojourn of the season remind me that I'm aging faster than cheddar cheese on a bleacher seat in August? Let me count the ways.

1. Most players are young enough to be my kids. I'm 47 today, so this is a relatively new phenomenon. Still, it's downright depressing to think that not only am I no longer a like-aged peer of the guys on the field, but most of them would now be apt to look at me like an old man -- their old man. 

I was 21 in 1988 -- old enough to be Will's dad.

2. Nobody playing for the Red Sox is older than me. As long as the Sox had Tim Wakefield, I was safe from this indignity -- since Wake was born exactly eight months before me. Now my closest contemporary on the Boston roster is Koji Uehara, born one day after my eighth birthday (Happy almost-birthday Koji), unless you count the coaching staff. I don't like to count the coaching staff. 

3. I've got sneakers and concert t-shirts older than Xander Bogaerts. This one speaks for itself. In fact, I was already out of college and well into my third newspaper job before Bogaerts entered the world in October 1992. 

If I was 21, I'd be smiling too.

4. I fill out a uniform -- too much. Ever make fun of the coaches and managers whose big guts droop over the belts of their uniforms? Me too, but not anymore.

5. Who the hell is that guy in right field? Without my glasses, I can't read the names on the backs of uniforms, which means I'm a slave to the JumboTron when it comes to identifying opposing players. I can recognize the Red Sox by their numbers, of course, but now those are starting to get blurry too.

The (not so) Ancient Warrior

6. "Old Man Yaz" was younger than me. This puts things into perspective, doesn't it? Captain Carl Yastrzemski was dragging his creaky bones around the American League at the ancient age of 44 by his last season, or three years younger than I am today.

7.  During spring training, the Red Sox played against Yaz's grandson. This one kind of makes my head spin. I mean, I was happy for Yaz and all, but it's still depressing.

 Yaz's grandson is playing? Oy vey...

8.  When planning out which games I'm going to, I check my kids' schedules. Parents, you know what I'm talking about here. Once the conflicts were house parties; now they are birthday parties. 


9. I sometimes turn on the Channel 5 News at 11:23 to catch the scores from Mike Lynch, or reach for the phone to call the Globe hotline. Yeah, I know every MLB box, video highlight, and updated batting average is on my iPhone, but old habits die hard.

My 1985 electronic scoreboard source.

10. I have a tough time staying awake for West Coast games. Or writing blog posts after midnight. Happy birthday to me.